UPDATE: Father of suspect: Son was good student, 'angel'

The father of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing described his fugitive son as a smart and accomplished "angel" in an anguished interview in which he claimed they were set up.

Anzor Tsarnaev spoke with The Associated Press by telephone in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan after police said one of his sons, 26-year-old Tamerlan, had been killed in a shootout and the other, Dzhokhar, was being intensely pursued.

"My son is a true angel," the elder Tsarnaev said. He said his son was "an intelligent boy" who was studying medicine.

"We expected him to come here on holidays," he said.

"They were set up, they were set up!" he exclaimed. "I saw it on television; they killed my older son Tamerlan."

The younger Tsarnaev gave few clues as to his inner life on his profile on Vkontakte, a Russian equivalent of Facebook, though he did include websites about Islam among his favorites.

The family's origins are in Chechnya, the mostly Muslim Russian republic where separatist rebels fought two full-scale wars with Russian forces since 1994.

A spokesman for Chechnya's leader said the family left Chechnya long ago and went to Central Asia, then moved to Dagestan, a Muslim republic adjacent to Chechnya that has been the site of a sporadic insurgency for more than a decade.

During the family's brief stay in Dagestan, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev attended School No. 1 in Makhachkala, the provincial capital. The principal's secretary at School No. 1, Irina Bandurina, told the AP that Tsarnaev left for the U.S. in March 2002.

Ruslan Tsarni, the uncle of the two suspects, said he was not sure whether someone had radicalized them, but said it would be wrong to blame their father.

"It's not my brother, who just moved back to Russia, who spent his life bringing bread to that table, fixing cars," Tsarni said at his house in Montgomery Village, Maryland.

Tsarni said his brother had little influence over his sons.

EARLIER: The father of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing described his fugitive son as a smart and accomplished "angel" in an anguished interview in which he claimed they were set up.

Anzor Tsarnaev spoke with The Associated Press by telephone in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan after police said one of his sons, 26-year-old Tamerlan, had been killed in a shootout and the other, Dzhokhar, was being intensely pursued.

"My son is a true angel," the elder Tsarnaev said. He said his son was "an intelligent boy" who was studying medicine.

"We expected him to come here on holidays," he said.

"They were set up, they were set up!" he exclaimed. "I saw it on television; they killed my older son Tamerlan."

The younger Tsarnaev gave few clues as to his inner life on his profile on Vkontakte, a Russian equivalent of Facebook, though he did include websites about Islam among his favorites.

The family's origins are in Chechnya, the mostly Muslim Russian republic where separatist rebels fought two full-scale wars with Russian forces since 1994.

A spokesman for Chechnya's leader said the family left Chechnya long ago and went to Central Asia, then moved to Dagestan, a Muslim republic adjacent to Chechnya that has been the site of a sporadic insurgency for more than a decade.

During the family's brief stay in Dagestan, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev attended School No. 1 in Makhachkala, the provincial capital. The principal's secretary at School No. 1, Irina Bandurina, told the AP that Tsarnaev left for the U.S. in March 2002.

Ruslan Tsarni, the uncle of the two suspects, said he was not sure whether someone had radicalized them, but said it would be wrong to blame their father.

"It's not my brother, who just moved back to Russia, who spent his life bringing bread to that table, fixing cars," Tsarni said at his house in Montgomery Village, Maryland.

Tsarni said his brother had little influence over his sons.

EARLIER: In an anguished interview, the father of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing described his fugitive son as a smart and accomplished "angel."

Anzor Tsarnaev spoke with The Associated Press by telephone from the southern Russian republic of Dagestan after police said one of his sons, 26-year-old Tamerlan, had been killed in a shootout and the other, Dzhokhar, was being intensely pursued.

"My son is a true angel," the elder Tsarnaev said. He said his son was "an intelligent boy" who was studying medicine.

"We expected him to come on holidays here," he said.

"They were set up, they were set up!" he exclaimed. "I saw it on television; they killed my older son Tamerlan."

The younger Tsarnaev gave few clues as to his inner life on his profile on Vkontakte, a Russian equivalent of Facebook, though he did include websites about Islam among his favorites.

The family's origins are in Chechnya, the mostly Muslim Russian republic where separatist rebels fought two full-scale wars with Russian forces since 1994.

A spokesman for Chechnya's leader said the family left Chechnya long ago and went to Central Asia, then moved to Dagestan, a Muslim republic adjacent to Chechnya that has been the site of a sporadic insurgency for more than a decade.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev attended School No. 1 in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. The principal's secretary at School No. 1, Irina Bandurina, told the AP that Tsarnaev left for the U.S. in March 2002.

UPDATE: The uncle of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects urged one of his nephews to turn himself in Friday, saying he had brought shame to the family and the entire Chechnyan ethnicity.

"Yes, we're ashamed. They're the children of my brother," Ruslan Tsarni told a throng of reporters outside his home in Montgomery Village, Md.

The suspects were identified by law enforcement officials and family members as Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, brothers from a Russian region near Chechnya. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a 26-year-old who had been known to the FBI as Suspect No. 1 and was seen in surveillance footage in a black baseball cap, was killed overnight, officials said.

His brother, a 19-year-old college student who was dubbed Suspect No. 2, escaped. He was seen wearing a white, backward baseball cap in the images from Monday's deadly bombing at the marathon finish line.

"Dzhokhar, if you are alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness," Tsarni said.

Tsarni called his nephews "losers" and said his family had not seen them since December 2005. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade.

Tsarni said his brother left the U.S. and he had not talked to him since 2009.

Chechnya has been plagued by an Islamic insurgency that has carried out deadly bombings.

Tsarni said vehemently that Chechnya had nothing to do with the attack. He said his nephews had struggled to settle themselves in the U.S. and ended up "thereby just hating everyone."

Tamerlan Tsarnaev practiced martial arts and boxing, even aspiring to fight on the U.S. Olympic team. Dzhozkar Tsarnaev had been on the wrestling team at a prestigious high school and won a scholarship from the city to pursue higher education. Neighbors recalled the ethnic Chechen brothers, living on a quiet street in Cambridge, Mass., riding bikes and skateboards.

Two brothers, one dead, one alive and at large. After hours of only grainy images of two men in baseball caps to go on, a portrait gradually emerged Friday of the men suspected in the Boston Marathon bombing.

The brothers, who came from a Russian region near Chechnya, lived together on Norfolk Street in Cambridge. They had been in the country for about a decade, according to an uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md.

Less was immediately known about Tamerlan, believed to be 26 when he was killed overnight in a shootout. He was the stockier one identified in video released to the public, wearing a black baseball cap and khaki pants. He was involved in martial arts, and competed in boxing matches. According to a crime website he was once arrested for domestic assault on a girlfriend.

"I don't have a single American friend. I don't understand them." he was quoted as saying in a photo package that appeared in a Boston University student magazine in 2010.

He identified himself as a Muslim and said he did not drink or smoke: "God said no alcohol." He said he hoped to fight for the U.S. Olympic team and become a naturalized American. He said he was studying at Bunker Hill Community College to become an engineer.

Dzhokhar, 19, attended the prestigious Cambridge Rindge and Latin school, participating on the wrestling team. In May 2011, his senior year, he was awarded a $2,500 scholarship from the city to pursue higher education, according to a news release at the time. That scholarship was celebrated with a reception at city hall.

He attended the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, Mass., university officials said Friday.

The school would not say what he was studying. The father of the suspects, Anzor Tsaraev, told the AP his younger son was "a second-year medical student," though he graduated high school in 2011.

"My son is a true angel ...," he said by telephone from the Russian city of Makhachkala. "He is such an intelligent boy. We expected him to come on holidays here."

Dzhokhar's page on the Russian social networking site Vkontakte says that before moving to the United States, he attended School No. 1 in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim republic in Russia's North Caucasus that has become an epicenter of the Islamic insurgency that spilled over from Chechnya. On the site, he describes himself as speaking Chechen as well as English and Russian. His world view is described as "Islam" and he says his personal goal is "career and money."

Tim Kelleher, a wrestling coach for a Boston school that competed in 2010 against Dzhokhar's team, said the young man was a good wrestler, and that he'd never heard him express any political opinions.

"He was a tough, solid kid, just quiet," said Kelleher, now a Boston public school teacher.

Deana Beaulieu, a 20-year-old student at Bunker Hill Community College who lives two blocks away from the suspects' home on Norfolk Street, said she went to high school with Dzhokhar and was friendly with his sister. She hadn't seen him since they graduated in 2011.

Speaking on the corner of Norfolk Street, she said she first met the younger brother in 2006 when she started seventh grade at the Cambridge Community Charter School and visited the family at their second-floor apartment that year. She recalled meeting the parents there.

"He was just a quiet kid," Beaulieu said of Dzhokhar, noting that she doesn't recall his ever expressing any political views. "I thought he was going to branch off to college, and now this is what he's done. ... I don't understand what the hell happened, what set him off like this."

Dzhokhar appeared in the video released by authorities on Thursday, identified as Suspect Number 2, striding down a sidewalk, unnoticed by spectators who were absorbed in the race. He followed Tamerlan by about 10 feet. He wore what appeared to be a gray hoodie under a dark jacket and pants, and a white baseball cap facing backward and pulled down haphazardly.

Tamerlan was wearing khaki pants, a light T-shirt, and a dark jacket. The brim of his baseball cap faced forward, and he may have been wearing sunglasses.

According to the website spotcrime.com, Tamerlan was arrested for domestic violence in July 2009, after assaulting his girlfriend. That report could not be immediately confirmed.

He was an amateur boxer, listed as a competitor in a National Golden Gloves competition in 2009. In a local news article in 2004, someone identified as Tamerlan spoke about his boxing and his views of America.

"I like the USA," Tamerlan was quoted as saying in The Sun of Lowell, Mass. "America has a lot of jobs. That's something Russia doesn't have. You have a chance to make money here if you are willing to work."

The paper quoted Tamerlan's trainer, Gene McCarthy, as saying: "He has a lot of heart. That's the key." It said he loved music, and played the piano and violin.